Thursday, 3 April 2014

NARS & Aviator Hotel afternoon tea event

Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend a talk from Jane Richardson, NARS' lead makeup artist, at the Aviator Hotel in Farnborough. As the event took place the day before Mother's Day I took my mum along with me as an early treat! When we arrived at the hotel we were greeted with cocktails and shown to our seats in the hotel's brasserie area. Jane than gave a talk about she became involved and shared some of her skincare and makeup knowledge with us. The event was pretty full so Jane made the talk really interactive by walking around to the different areas of the restaurant and asking questions throughout and giving people the opportunity to ask questions at any point. The talk was so relaxed - I love that we weren't just sat in a conference room listening to Jane speak, we were all involved with the talk as well.

As a lover of NARS cosmetics I already knew a fare bit about the company but for someone like my Mum who had never heard of them before it was really interesting for her to learn about the brand.

After the talk we were provided with champagne and afternoon tea which consisted of sandwiches and the most beautifully designed cakes I have ever seen! There were queues of people wanting to go over and have a chat with Jane after but she spent time with everyone and was so helpful.

A few of the things she said that have stuck with me mainly relate to skincare - she emphasised how good the skin is at healing itself and how important it is to moisturise skin and not over exfoliate it or scrub it with harsh treatments! Make-up wise she told me not to be afraid of colour and go for bold lip colours, I told Jane about my fear of eyeshadow because it is so over powering on my eyes and she suggested experimenting with coloured eye liners and using eye colours on the bottom lash line instead of the top.

Another makeup tip I have picked up is the different areas that you can apply blusher on your face - rather than just putting it on the apples of your cheeks Jane suggested wearing it a bit higher on the cheekbones or going for a geisha look.

At the end of the event we took home a little goodie bag that had mini versions of NARS' gentle eye make up remover, an eye pencil, the pro-prime light optimizing primer, and a mini blush in the shade 'Deep Throat' which is a gorgeous soft baby pink colour. I have been using Benefit Hoola on my cheeks recently but the shade is a bit too purpley for my fair skin but 'Deep Throat' is the perfect shade for me to wear during the day time!

A big thank you to the Aviator Hotel and to Jane for a lovely afternoon!